Quinns Mindarie Surf Life Saving Club open days to encourage more to join

Quinns Mindarie Surf Life Saving Club will hold two open days in March during its weekly nippers training. Picture: Paul Jarvis

QUINNS Mindarie Surf Life Saving Club will showcase its activities with two open days this month.

The club will host open days on March 11 and 18 during its weekly nippers training sessions in a bid to encourage more people to join.

The club’s primary purpose is to do beach patrols, with volunteers trained in first aid, rescue and resuscitation watching the beach on weekends and public holidays from October to April.

It also runs the junior nippers program on Sunday mornings, when children aged six to 13 train in beach and water events, including beach races, flags, relays, surf wading, surf swims and board races.

Quinns Mindarie Surf Life Saving Club will hold two open days in March during its weekly nippers training. Picture: Paul Jarvis

President Neil Rigby said the events would open the club to people interested in seeing what it does.

“It’s to introduce people to surf life saving and what we do in the community,” he said.

“We are going to have the nippers, the activities that we do and we can introduce them to surf boats, inflatable rescue boats (and) members.”

Mr Rigby said the growing club had about 640 members and he expected another 100 people to join next season when it added an under-6 nippers group.

Nippers training includes beach sprints. Picture: Bruce Westerman

“We are going to do surf awareness for a younger age group because we’ve been asked for the last few seasons,” he said.

The nippers also train in board rescues, where a swimmer goes to a designated buoy and a board paddler rescues them and takes them back to shore.

There are also races such as the run-swim-run combining two sprints along the beach, separated by a swim leg, and the iron man or iron woman race that involves running on the sand, swimming and paddling a board around a set course.

Teenagers can take part in more challenging programs as well as competition and training, and become assistant age managers, competition officials and carnival helpers.